In this murder mystery from Diana Febry we see the return of Peter and Fiona when they team up to investigate various crimes and misdemeanours that occur within another horse-involved community. I found the characterisation of both detectives and the murderer strong and believable, with improved switches of POV compared to the first novel from Diana Febry, which I read a few months ago. The story had pace and enough twists and turns to keep my interest, with the lead up to the finale exciting and gripping to the end. The banter and dialogue between characters, their innermost thoughts and reactions I found realistic throughout the story.

There were a few incidents left unexplained, giving this reader an unsatisfied and disappointed feeling, such as how a frail and elderly man managed to overpower the younger and stronger James Palmer. I found a few punctuation/spelling errors (missing apostrophe or hyphen space) and some curious phrases that made me give the words a second look: “a bald patch of hair”; “unexperienced” versus inexperienced; “police constable” abbreviated to P.C. at one point then PC for the remainder; and “Miss Powell/Mrs Powell” referring to the same person on the same page. The lack of a digitally active table of contents in an ebook is worth correcting in my opinion – surely expected nowadays.

Despite the criticisms above I enjoyed this novel much more than Bells On Her Toes and can definitely recommend it to lovers of the crime thriller/cozy murder mystery genre. I would certainly read another from the pen/keyboard of Ms Febry. I received a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest, non-reciprocal review.